'We are a sick nation'

HARARE - They say “a healthy nation is a happy nation while a sickly nation is a sad nation”.

Today Zimbabwe is a “sad nation” because of an ailing health sector saddled by drug shortages and a crippling strike by doctors.

With the doctors away from their stations, the sight of nurses might soften a patient but sadly the nurses are also saying they have had enough of this circus; they are now coming to work two days per week!

Sadly, the people who are supposed to work and provide for the family are themselves a victim of a poor health delivery system, hence they can’t function normally.

Most of the people you see moving around have various diseases around their necks which are suppressed by medication — talk of BP, HIV/Aids, asthma.

These are silent diseases that constantly need treatment and without drugs many of the patients are in pain and can easily lose their lives anytime.

It has never been easy to lose a life, especially from a disease that can easily be treated, but that is what is happening around the country.

I urge our government to be considerate and prioritise, with urgency, negotiations with the striking medical staff so we can avert more suffering among our people.

Politicians who are toying with people’s live should visit the hospitals to see for themselves the agony that both the patients and those carrying them around have to endure.

Others are hiring cars and ambulances to ferry the sick to distant hospitals only to be told they have to take their relatives back home. But then what do you do with an ill person at home?

At the hospitals the cry of pain can be heard in wards because there are others who cannot afford to move an inch because of the dire conditions they are in, some cannot even walk, some need operations.

Mothers with babies are the most sad picture you see at these hospitals as they are clueless and have nowhere to seek medical help.

Is this really the Zimbabwe that generations and generations fought for; a Zimbabwe that saw lives being lost; a Zimbabwe everyone prayed for?

For how long can we continue to suffer while authorities look at us and blame us for all the mishaps.

Government cannot continue to refuse rewarding doctors and nurses because they are a critical component to our well-being and if you see the salaries they are said to be earning then you know they have a genuine case.

Whether he or she is a ‘‘junior’’ doctor is neither here nor there but for them to earn anything below $500 is just but an insult.

Government has to be serious and reward these professionals who I should say do the work many a people will never dare.

It is sad when they complain about shortages of drugs and equipment, and government ignores them.

These guys are pained when lives are lost at their hands because they cannot administer the right medication; they do not even have injections and gloves. How do you expect them to work surely?

Today, even if the doctors are to all troop back to work; what will they use? What will they administer to the patients?

Should they go in the bush to look for herbs?

And the rich have the comfort to fly elsewhere for treatment, most of them under government expense — which means as a taxpayer I am paying for these guys to have treatment overseas while I have to suffer at home.

It is my hope that as government tries to engage the doctors, officials do not have to be reckless with words that seem to end up being insulting.

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